A home invasion film would actually be a great vehicle to serve such an ultimate purpose, since the subgenre has been used as cultural commentary for several decades — beginning with D.W. Griffith’s The Lonely Villa in 1909. Since folks apparently can’t get enough of the stranger-in-one’s-home archetype, the decades following have seen endless permutations in multiple mainstream films arriving each year. The concept somehow remains so ripe with potential that, at times, it’s a joy in and of itself to see what type of spin will arrive with the next member of the subgenre.

Yet despite the imaginative nature of suspense writers, it seems that their treatment of women in home invasion films rarely changes. Yes, other forms of cultural commentary persist with the attempting of righted wrongs. Just to name a few well-treaded examples, recent years have brought impressive twists that have been particularly unsettling with the panic-inducing Don’t Breathe setting up audiences to root for the invaders in a crudely effective refashioning of the formula. That film, along with The Purge, drips with thematic currents that skewer Americans’ racism and outright xenophobia.

In Don’t Breathe, a blind veteran must fend off his intruders, but he’s certainly not a hero — and that’s where the film gets dicey with its treatment of women. The vet had already impregnated one captive, and after accidentally shooting her, he tried to rape Jane Levy’s Rocky (while claiming, “I’m not a rapist”) with a turkey baster in a scene so controversial and notorious that, years later, one really wonders what director Fede Alvarez aimed to do. He succeeded at turning several horror tropes on their heads, but still, the female lead (who is rescued by a guy who wants to bang her) remains the target of gendered violence, all because she’s a woman and, therefore, capable of being a mom.

These films’ presumed grounding in reality (even though examples like Rosemary’s Baby include supernatural elements) make them all the more horrifying, and their take on gender is, unfortunately, often very realistic. And the invaders, as fellow humans, resemble ourselves with rationales that wildly vary. While some intruders carefully choose their victims as a means of revenge or in pursuit of something in particular, the selection process can be random (or, at least, it initially appears that way), which only adds to the helplessness felt by audiences. And rarely are victims as well-equipped as Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone (obviously a rare comedic variant on the archetype) — it happens, but seldom is the premise set up well.

“That is to say, Liv Tyler’s character refuses a marriage proposal, and soon enough, she’s being figuratively punished while fighting off masked murderers.” – That’s a bit of a stretch in relation to cause-and-effect motives, don’t you think?